


The Devil's Luck

by disenchanted



Category: Dunkirk (2017)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Established Relationship, M/M, Major Character Injury, Post-Canon, Reunions, hurt/comfort of a sort, the chronic eye strain of the fighter pilot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 14:17:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13055694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disenchanted/pseuds/disenchanted
Summary: Farrier returns to Britain in the spring of 1942.





	The Devil's Luck

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cori Lannam (corilannam)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/corilannam/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, Cori Lannam! It was a pleasure to get to spend more time with Collins and Farrier, and imagine how the rest of their war might have proceeded; I hope you enjoy. 
> 
> Thanks to my beta and Scotspicker.

By that point in the evening Collins was drunk enough that he thought it must have been a joke. He laughed, blithe and uncaring. He was on leave in London; he’d been at the Brevet Club three hours so far, and he’d had to get pretty well sauced to come to the Brevet, which was off Berkeley Square, in the first place. And then as he was stumbling towards the lav for the third or fourth time a chap he dimly recognised had tapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘You’re Collins, aren’t you? Flew Spitfires out of Biggin Hill in forty, forty-one?’ After Collins answered in the affirmative the chap had said, ‘Funny I should see you here. I was just hearing about you—Look, remember Geoff Farrier? Do you know, he’s back in England. The old bastard made it out of Colditz.’

The laughter felt like it was being hefted out of Collins’ chest with a shovel. He couldn’t imagine what amusement this spotty little P/O, who was undoubtedly too young to have been flying during the Dunkirk evacuation, got out of having him on. Then Collins remembered where he knew the chap from: he’d arrived at Biggin Hill in autumn of forty-one, a month or two before Collins had left for the night-fighter O.T.U. at Cranfield. Rogers? Reynolds? He hadn’t made an impression; there had been too many like him.

‘I met him just by chance,’ the chap was explaining. ‘My older brother knew him at school, brought him round one day for tea at my parents’ house about two weeks ago. He’s been on leave at _his_ mother’s since he got back, he said. Seems they let you off for yonks if you’re an escapee. He asked about you, and I said well yes you _were_ at Biggin Hill for a bit but I didn’t know where you’d got off to. I asked him why didn’t he ring the Staysh and he said oh no, no need, just curious. Actually he said he hadn’t been sure you were alive; said the last time he saw you you were sinking with your Spit off the coast of Dunkirk.’

‘Well,’ said Collins, who had been jerked rapidly from laughter to tight-lipped nausea. ‘Devil of a thing, eh? Right. I’ll just—’

He tried to take a night bus back to Fitzrovia, where he was staying at a boarding-house well-known in the RAF for the laxity of its curfew, and found after a couple of stops that the wobbling and clattering was too much to bear. He got off at Piccadilly Circus, was sick in the street, and went the rest of the way on foot, making his way up Regent Street in the blackout. Every now and then he passed a hole in the line of buildings where one had been bombed out, and was thrust into moonlight. Though he should have been glad for the light if he had been flying, he hurried to reach darkness again. 

At the desk in the corner of his room, on the near-transparent foolscap he had been reduced to using as writing-paper, he scrawled:  

 

> Farrier—
> 
> Just tonight heard from some bloody P/O at the Brevet you are in England again and have asked about me. Why the hell  didn’t you ring the Staysh at Biggin Hill. I am 31 Sqn now & have been at West Malling since the beginning of the year. If Kent is too far to travel — write me.
> 
> Collins

 

To use a full sheet of paper for such a message seemed an unimaginable waste. When he wrote to his sisters Collins crammed a message of four or five pages’ length onto one sheet, front and back, in writing so small they complained that reading it was wrecking their eyesight. For thirty minutes, then, he sat smoking through the last of his packet and asking himself what he could possibly add as a post-script that would make the letter worthwhile. _PS I only mean it’s been so long—? PS And perhaps on my next leave—? PS It is_ _F/L_ _Collins now_? When he ran out of fags he tucked the letter as it was into the envelope, licked and sealed it, and on the front carefully filled in the address he hoped he was remembering correctly.

 

* * *

 

‘All right, Jock, here we go. Contact 4,000 feet and about twenty degrees to starboard. Turn starboard, and down 500 feet.’

‘Got it,’ said Collins, and throttled forward, picking up speed as he eased his Beaufighter down. The moon was on the wane, muted by light, high cloud; he blinked a few times to wet his eyes, clear his vision.

As soon as he had reached the patrol line that night he had been vectored due east to intercept a bandit coming in towards Canterbury. For the past week, as Bomber Command went on pounding Rostock, the Luftwaffe had been setting their sights on cathedral cities; already they had raided Bath, Exeter, Norwich and York. Now they were in 31 Squadron’s territory.

‘He’s dead ahead now,’ said Coldwell. ‘Down another 500 feet, and for Christ’s sake slow down.’ 

‘Piss off,’ said Collins, ‘I’ve got another 1,500 feet to make up,’ but throttled back all the same. Coldwell, a twenty-one-year-old from Nova Scotia, had been his AI operator since Collins had arrived at West Malling; it was a bit of a joke at the station, this marriage between the Scot and the Canadian, but Coldwell had never led him wrong. So he descended as directed, and kept his throttles back till Coldwell told him his speed was synchronised with the target’s. 

Beneath the ticking anticipation of the hunt there was something else: since takeoff it had been curling through him, squeezing up his stomach and throat. That afternoon he had got a letter from Farrier. It was not really a letter, it was a note, as scanty as the one he’d sent; the only information it imparted was that Kent was not too far to travel, Farrier had time to spare, so would drop by next week-end. He would not come to the station, they would meet in the village for a drink. No one at Malling had to know the specifics; certainly Coldwell needn’t know.

‘Anything yet?’ asked Coldwell. 

Collins strained to look into the darkness. The clouds shifted beneath him; shadows shifted through the clouds. He had been envious sometimes of the bombers, who, flying over Germany, got closer to Farrier than he ever did. Now that Farrier was here, in England—not beneath him, the Farrier family pile was in Gloucestershire, but this side of the Channel at least—he felt, as he hadn’t before, the sickening responsibility of protecting the land where the beloved lived. His heart felt as if it had been knotted like a scarf; pain flashed through his chest. Down another 500 feet, and from the shadows emerged the silhouette of a Dornier 217 ahead and below. 

‘I see him,’ cried Collins, 'I'm blastin him tae fuck.’

But as soon as he’d pressed the firing button the Dornier opened fire with its rear-upper machine guns; Collins had scarcely seen the flashes of his own cannons before he swerved to port, shrieking curses that were lost in the whine of the Beau’s engine. By the time he got himself back on course the Dornier had dived into the clouds and disappeared. 

‘Where the hell did he go?’ Collins demanded. 

‘Can’t tell,’ muttered Coldwell, ‘too much ground clutter.’ 

It didn’t matter anyway: they’d only got just enough fuel to make it back to Malling, where they would mark down another inconclusive. When they were on the ground Coldwell asked Collins down to the cellar bar at the Manor House. After four or five martinis and a couple of ribald songs, Coldwell mustered up the courage to inquire whether there was, by any chance, something in particular on Collins’ mind. Collins laughed as dryly as he did at the P/O who told him about Farrier. He said, ‘Aye—getting in another round before last call.’ 

 

* * *

 

The first Collins saw of Farrier since June of 1940 was his back. He was seated at the bar at the George and Dragon on Wrotham High Street, alone. There were chaps from the Station about, some Collins’ squadronmates, who were giving him a wide berth; Collins assumed Farrier had given them the brush-off, and remembered how stunningly awful it felt to be given it. In 1940 Farrier was twenty-nine, old enough for the others in the squadron to call him ‘Dad’, and still he gave the impression of total imperviousness to all the failures and humiliations that might befall anyone else. He had been the first pilot at Biggin Hill who hadn’t been in the last war to become an ace. To receive a nod or a smile from him was to receive some portion of his luck; to be dismissed by him, made fun of by him, even gently, was to have some portion of your own luck taken away.

Farrier hadn’t got the glow about him now. He was thin; though he had plainly had his new set of blues tailored to fit, the shape of him was different. His hair was grown out—about a month’s growth, Collins guessed—assiduously combed and Brilliantined. He was halfway through a pint of heavy. Collins wished he had had another nip of whiskey from his flask before he’d gone in the pub.

Collins swung himself onto the stool next to Farrier’s, rested his elbow on the bar and ordered a whiskey, as he liked the proprietor too well to drink out of his flask in front of her. Farrier flinched and, when he recognised him, did not smile. Collins hadn’t expected he would. 

‘You’re a bleeding lunatic,’ said Collins. ‘What the hell are you doing in England?’ 

What did he look like to Farrier? Collins wondered. Farrier was looking at him. He looked at himself every morning in the mirror, sometimes quite intently when he was shaving, but to him he’d looked the more or less the same since he was old enough to look in mirrors. There were, he knew, a few more wrinkles around his eyes.

‘It’s a funny story, actually,’ said Farrier, ‘but a bit of a long one. Great deal of foreign travel, and that has the tendency to bore an audience if one’s not careful.’

‘Aye right,’ said Collins. That was just how Farrier always spoke when he had decided not to answer a question. It did nothing but stoke curiosity; Collins peered at Farrier as if something crucial could be intuited from his look. 

Farrier’s face did look different. There was a greyness in the skin around his eyes, deeper lines in his forehead. His teeth were yellower. Still the same thick, supercilious lips, between which he was placing a cigarette. Automatically Collins offered a light. It was the first time in two years he had seen Farrier smoke, and he observed that Farrier did so reverently now, consciously, breathing it down to the bottom of his lungs and exhaling as if he wished he hadn’t got to.

‘So you aren’t flying Spits,’ said Farrier. 

Shrugging, swallowing his whiskey and motioning for another, Collins said, ‘The Luftwaffe’s not doing daytime raids. For that matter they’re not bombing London anymore. They’ve moved on to fuckin’—Exeter, and Bath. Supposedly it’s revenge; thing is, a year ago it came out our bombers hadn’t been doing shite. There was a report and everything, hung ‘em out to dry. Bomber Command’s just now getting the hang of it; Lübeck’s the first thing they did right. And all those raids before—’

‘What _are_ you flying?’ Farrier asked.

‘Beaufighters. Jesus, don’t look at me like that; they’re decent machines these days. Nobody liked the Spits when they came out either. And we’ve got AI sets, we could fly in the Aberdeen haar—’

‘Which means,’ said Farrier, ‘you can’t have a lie-in when there _is_ fog—’

‘Aye, and I’d rather fly a Beaufighter every night for the next five years than be in a Spit and have the summer of 1940 again.’ Which he had meant as a comradely grouse, one of those half-serious whinges that one makes in the company of those who have shared in one’s miseries, that always come with an implicit ‘And you would too, because you know’; but Farrier didn’t know. 

The fighting over Dunkirk had been bad. Then there had been the next five months, during which Collins had had leave perhaps twice; during which he had been shot down or crashed more times than that; during which there had been so many losses at the station they had had to merge 28 Squadron and 73 Squadron just to make up four sections between them. Collins felt his twitch coming back, remembering. His second leave of that period had come just when he was certain he couldn’t fly without a Benzedrine tablet and two fingers of whiskey; his wing commander had taken him aside and told him that if he didn’t take a week’s leave he would bally well end up killing someone, which was to say _not_ who he was meant to be killing. It was different now: he flew quite sober almost all the time. He had not died, and he was not in a burns unit. He did not give a damn how it felt so long as he was flying. Farrier had suffered too, he knew: Farrier was just the same, and for two years now he hadn’t so much as been in a cockpit.

‘Look,’ said Collins. ‘Have another pint; I’ll tell you what happened to the chaps you knew.’

So few who had been at Biggin Hill in Farrier’s time were still flying that frankly it was mad Collins was. Not to say that Collins was the most distinguished of the thirty-niners: Willoughby, Collins told Farrier, had been promoted to squadron leader at the age of twenty-four; Kendrick had been awarded the DFC for shooting down three 109s in a single sortie in September 1940; Abbott-Hughes had carried on a very public affair with Margaret Lockwood. But then there were Honeycutt, Mercer and Clarke, who were in a hospital in West Sussex devoted to the care of burned aircrew, having the skin of their chest, stomach and thighs laboriously grafted onto their hands and face. There was Benson, who descended into psychosis one evening in the pub, and had to be taken from the station infirmary to a psychiatric hospital in London. There was Thackeray, who had been court-martialled and cashiered for embezzling from the officers’ mess, and a month afterwards court-martialled again for public drunkenness. And then the God-knows-how-many others who had been shot down, quickly and unimpressively; who, like Fortis Leader, had sunk into the Channel and remained unrecoverable. And the one chap who hadn’t been shot down at all: who, one afternoon during a convoy escort, simply dropped out of formation and spiralled till he hit the drink. There was no quality of Collins’ that prevented him from being like any of these others, except perhaps his being queer, which he thought put rather a dent in his chances of carrying on a public affair with an actress. 

These stories took long enough to tell that by the time Collins was finished he and Farrier had both got a few more rounds in, and were drunk. Slouching on his stool, leaning back and blowing smoke towards the ceiling, Collins said, ‘Am still no sure am no gonnae blink and see I’ve been talking to a coat rack wi some other fella's cap and jacket on. I mean whit did ye dae—to get oot of bloody Schloss Colditz—?’

The last Collins had heard from Farrier was over half a year ago. By that time he was in Colditz, where the post was more regular than in some other camps; Collins had had a postcard from him, dated seven weeks before he received it, saying nothing more than that he was well, and catching up on his reading, as relief parcels often included books. The last Collins had heard before that, Farrier was still in Spangenberg, and wrote that spirits were high as, following communication with the Swiss Commission at Geneva, the castle had been fitted with new flushing toilets that were marked for British use, that therefore had not got to be shared with the filthy French. So many nights Collins had spent drinking with people he liked, but did not like as much as he had liked Farrier, imagining what they would say to each other if they met again (Collins had not thought they would). Now they were together Collins found they were not talking any more freely about the war, their wars, than they had done in letters passed through a German censor. 

‘It isn’t a funny story, really,’ said Farrier. ‘But it is long. If we win the war I’ll write a sensational memoir, and live on the proceeds. Till then I don’t think I care to make the effort.’

And why should he? Collins asked himself. He knew what it was to have someone who did not know—a pilot fresh out of training, a girl he’d been forced to dance with, a middle-aged man who’d been too young to fight in the last war and too old to fight in this one—ask him to tell them a story about the Battle of Britain. He found they didn’t want to know, really; they wanted to imagine Collins handsome and grinning, wearing a polka-dotted silk scarf, singing God Save the King as he blasted a dozen 109s out of the sky. Perhaps Collins didn’t want to, oughtn’t to know what it had been like in Germany, and how Farrier had got out; perhaps it was irrelevant. To be able to reach out and touch Farrier’s shoulder was enough.

When the proprietor announced last call Collins asked whether Farrier had got a train to catch. Farrier said no, he was staying the night just up the road at the Three Horseshoes. Collins offered to walk him back and Farrier said, ‘Yes, why don’t you. I’d like that.’ 

 

* * *

 

The Three Horseshoes was rather farther than just up the road: it was a shabby little inn about a mile west of Wrotham proper, unfrequented by aircrew simply because it was too far from the station to make it worth journeying back from while blind drunk. The moon was covered by cloud, and before Collins and Farrier were halfway there it was raining. They ran the last half-mile and still arrived wet, blanched from the chill. 

Collins stood for a minute in the doorway, shaking out his sopping cap, running his fingers through his wet hair, shivering slightly. Farrier hesitated, as though he was preparing to say his goodbyes, and said instead, ‘Come up and dry off, old fellow. Unless you’ve somewhere to be.’

‘No for a while mair,’ said Collins, and went up to the attic room Farrier had rented for the night.

At the foot of the sagging bed sat Farrier’s kitbag, still full; only his comb and Brilliantine were out. The bed was still made, and rather than sit on it Farrier took off his boots while standing. Now they were alone a silence had closed in on them. If it were May of two years ago there would be no doubt about what they had come here to do: but there was doubt. If Collins sat on the wicker chair that had been furnished for the writing desk, and took off his boots and drank whiskey from his flask until his socks were dry, and put his boots back on and said right-oh well jolly good you’re back and drop by if you’re ever in Kent again, we can go for a drive round the Downs, Farrier would have accepted it, graciously, the way Collins imagined he’d accepted the necessity of his surrender. But it would have hurt him just the same as his surrender had done; and Collins had a premonition that if he left Farrier tonight without kissing him, the next time he flew would be his last. It was pure luck that either of them were here: Collins reckoned that if he threw that luck away the gods (or the gremlins) would decide he wasn’t worthy of it, and take it away. 

Farrier was smoking again, still with that curious reverence Collins had never known him to afford to anything but his Spit. When Farrier caught Collins looking he said, exhaling, ‘I once saw a man give another a black eye over a fag-end a guard had put out. They were both officers; gentlemen too I should say. Of course it was a longer story than that. … Do you want me to tell it to you?’

‘No,’ said Collins, truthfully. He did not want or need to know; he might have done if Farrier had died, but Farrier was alive, and here. He unbuttoned his jacket and tossed it to the floor; Farrier loosened his tie. Before he could untie it Collins took it in hand and pulled him forward for a kiss. 

When had their last kiss been? Probably it had been quick, more a frustration than a relief; a smear of lips and tongue in the relative safety of the blackout. Collins could count on one hand the number of times they had had a room and a night to themselves. Even when they had it felt as if they were working against time, stealing some rare thing that ordinarily was guarded but that had been left for a moment unattended. That feeling, Collins found, was the same; for he would be flying again the next night, and the night after that. He kept on kissing Farrier even as they stripped each other, shoring himself up with luck. 

The bed creaked complainingly when Farrier pulled Collins down onto it. Wrapped in each other’s arms, they went still, glancing round the room as if someone else might be there. They were alone. They laughed, and fell into another kiss still laughing. They put their hands on whatever flesh they found; though they were both hard they touched each other’s backs, thighs, stomachs, taking an inventory of the bodies that they now possessed, before they found their way to each other’s cocks. When they did, it was gratification unparalleled. 

It occurred to Collins that the last time Farrier fucked anyone was probably two years ago, and that the last person he fucked was him. Collins laughed again recalling the faces his squadronmates made when they had got London leave and he declined their invitation to see a nude show. ‘Why?’ they asked, ‘is it because you’ve already _got_ a girl?’ What could he have said? ‘Oh, I’ve got someone, but he’s in a prison camp at the moment.’ He was miserable then; but it would be its own sort of pleasure, he thought, to return to the station tonight and smile in that smug, secretive way lovers do, and be asked why he was smiling and say that it didn't matter.

‘May I?’ asked Farrier. He was lying between Collins’ legs, letting Collins’ cock press up against his clean-shaven cheek.

Collins answered with a hand to Farrier’s head. He cupped the curve of Farrier’s skull, tugged at his hair so that his lips, thick and supercilious as ever, smeared along his shaft. When Farrier’s tongue wet his cock Collins flung his eyes up to the ceiling and looked for nothing.  


 

* * *

 

The moon was new. Each month Collins dreaded this: the directionless darkness, the circle in the sky just bright enough to be seen but not bright enough to cast light. He had been vectored towards a bandit coming in across the Channel, about five miles south of Eastbourne, and with Coldwell’s instruction descended to 1,000 feet, then 500, then 200. Coldwell had announced contact 1,500 feet dead ahead. Beneath them the Channel was pure black; there was no moonlight on the water. The sky was as dark as the sea. 

‘Keep your eyes open,’ said Coldwell.

Collins’ eyes were open, watering with the effort of keeping them so. He said, ‘I can’t see shite,’ and just as he said it, saw two lights wavering ahead and below. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, looked again. They were not stars: they were the exhausts of a twin-engined aircraft, probably a Ju 88. 

‘I’ve got him,’ said Collins, ‘I’m opening fire.’ 

‘Not yet,’ said Coldwell. ‘You’re out of range. Get within 200 yards.’ 

‘For fuck’s sake,’ said Collins. Of course Coldwell was right. If he fired at this distance he would only be wasting ammunition; and worse than that, drawing attention to himself. He eased the throttle forward and watched the two lights grow larger, brighter.

Collins had his finger over the firing button when the Controller came over the R/T: ‘Topper 44, we’ve got bad weather coming in over Malling. You had better make your way back to the station.’

Collins laughed. ‘Like hell,’ he told Coldwell, and fired between the spots of light. 

Sparks jumped across the dark; but there was no flame, and the lights of the exhausts stayed steady. Soon the sparks were flying towards Collins: the enemy was returning fire with its rear gun. He braced for the noise of bullets hitting the Beau and heard nothing. Still he was clenching the steering column hard enough that his fingers began to go numb. The Ju 88 banked to port, and Collins followed. 

‘We should turn back,’ said Coldwell, ‘it’s not worth it. We’ve got just enough fuel to make it to Malling, and the landing will be difficult.’ 

Collins wondered whether, if he had still been in his Spit as Farrier was circling the minesweeper, he might have said the same: it isn’t worth it, the lives you save today won’t stack up against those you will save if you make it back safely, the scales will be off-balance. He imagined that if he had, Farrier would have told him what he told Coldwell, which was: ‘Not yet.’ The fighter pilot always believed, however much he dwelled on death, and saw it, and narrowly escaped it, that he himself, and no other, was immortal. So Collins got the Ju 88 in his sights again and pressed the firing button. This time the sparks were followed by a plume of flame; the Ju’s starboard engine had caught fire. He and Coldwell watched as the flame descended, was swallowed by the sea. 

As they approached Malling the cloud grew denser, the darkness darker; rain pelted the canopy, blurring the view. Orbs of red light emerged slowly from the mist, and by the time Collins realised these were the flares lined up along the runway he was over the edge of it, going too fast to land properly. When the wheels hit the pavement the Beau jolted like a kicked tin can. Collins was dimly aware of Coldwell cursing, telling him to kick the rudders damn you, which Collins _was_ doing, with the sort of startling vigor granted only by adrenaline. 

Too late; the line of flares was ending just ahead. With a muttered prayer to the gods of aviation Collins veered to starboard, and thumped forward as the Beau’s port wing crashed into some solid object. Bright spots speckled his vision, and for a terrible moment he thought the Beau had caught fire: in fact it was only that his face had collided with the steering column. 

Before the scene melted into the blur of concussion Collins said, ‘All right, Coldwell?’ and, after he was assured it was so, said, ‘I’m going to owe you a drink.’ 

 

* * *

 

In the spring of 1940 one of the worst things that could have happened to Collins—almost worse than death, likely worse than capture, neither of which anyone had at that point entirely believed possible anyway—was to receive Farrier’s disapprobation. When he got his first kill, a 109 over Calais, he did a grand, extravagant victory roll as he descended towards the runway at Biggin Hill; directly he was out of his kite Farrier was upon him, asking him for Christ’s sake what did he think he had accomplished with that stunt, no one at the station was in the least impressed, and if he had crashed what the devil would he have told the Station Commander. Farrier had spoken quietly, had not made a show of this chastisement for the education or entertainment of the rest of the squadron, but all the same Collins felt, for the first time in his short career, that perhaps he was a sorrier pilot than he had previously believed. For months afterward everything Collins did in the air was done for the sole purpose of restoring Farrier’s esteem. 

What Collins was faced with now was undoubtedly Farrier’s disapprobation. After he had been discharged from hospital, he had written a letter to Farrier telling him he had got a week’s leave unexpectedly, and would he like to meet for a couple of days in London; Farrier had written back that he had reserved a twin room at a decent hotel near Victoria Station. (In 1940 they had spent their London leaves in bedsits, but Collins supposed imprisonment had made Farrier more generous and more reckless.) It was only when he was in London, at the hotel, knocking on the door to the room Farrier had procured, that he had realised he had not told Farrier he would be arriving with two black eyes and a line of stitches running from the bridge of his nose to his forehead. So here they were, together, and Farrier was disapprobating like a cat drenched in water. Funnily Collins found he didn’t mind at all.

‘Were you _shot down_?’ asked Farrier.

‘I’d have said if I had been,’ said Collins, flinging the door shut behind him. ‘Crashed, only—bitched a landing on a coarse night. Rolled down the runway and collided with a Hurricane that had been put out to be flown the morn. I must have been going fifty miles an hour, the Hurrie didn’t stand a chance. Neither did the old heid. Have ye anything to drink?’

Farrier said, ‘Not for a bloody fool like you. Collins— Look at me. Collins!’

Collins did look. Farrier’s brows were drawn together, with only the furrow of a deep frown between them. Though his brow shaded his eyes, his irises were bright. His lips were parted slightly and showed his crooked bottom teeth. By this Collins was unspeakably moved. He had never seen a look like that in Farrier before, and he found the fact a comfort: it meant that Farrier was himself, alive and growing older, moving beyond the bounds of Collins’ memories. Collins reached out his hand to cup Farrier’s cheek and was slapped away; instead, Farrier took Collins by the shoulders, digging his fingers in deep enough to bruise. 

‘You must go on flying,’ said Farrier. 

It was the truest thing he could have said. If he had told Collins that he had got to stay alive for him, Collins would have said, no matter what he felt, ‘Why should I?’ If he had told him that his life was worth living for its own sake Collins would have wept laughing. But to fly: yes, Collins had got to. That was something he knew within himself. To be told it, as if he didn't know already, made him boil. 

‘What do you think I’ve been doing,’ Collins spat, ‘for the past two years?’ 

‘Doing your damndest to kill yourself,’ suggested Farrier. 

‘I did just what you did,’ said Collins. ‘We were tailing a Ju 88 over the water near Beachy Head. Control told us the weather was rough at Malling and I said to hell with it, I’m not turning back now. I’d got the Ju in my sights, if I’d let him go I’d have deserved to be shot myself. And I shot him down. It was my twelfth kill of the war. Fucking worth it, I’d say.’

Bleakly, with his hands on Collins’ shoulders still, Farrier laughed. ‘Jesus Christ, Collins. Yes, twelve is a decent sum. And if you’d been killed? It would have stayed at twelve; with how many years of war left to go?’

‘Not my fault,’ said Collins, ‘that you were captured with five kills to your name. You’re jealous I’ve still got the chance to be killed in action.’ 

Collins thought, for a still, silent moment, that Farrier might strike him. Farrier’s face had barely twitched; but the line between his brows was deeper, his mouth pulled thinner. It felt like a premonition of the face Farrier might make if, or when, Collins _was_ killed. Suddenly Collins was direly aware of the ache in his head, the smarting of the stitches in his skin. Would he scar? he wondered. Would he have worse scars by the time the war had finished? 

Farrier did not strike him: he kissed him, roughly, as if it were a rebuke. It was like a shot had been fired. All at once there was motion; Farrier’s hands were on the buttons of Collins’ jacket, Collins’ hands were in Farrier’s hair. As they pulled at each other’s clothing Farrier muttered, under his breath, in the tone with which a lover might dispatch endearments: ‘You mad, mad— You fool, you bloody— Fucking—’

‘I know,’ said Collins, shoving Farrier backwards onto the bed. ‘That’s why you wanted me, then: you knew what I was before I knew it. If I was sound you wouldn’t give a damn about me.’

‘I _would_ ,’ protested Farrier. ‘Perhaps I’d love you less.’ 

Collins—turning Farrier onto his stomach, giving his bare arse an impulsive slap—said, ‘Quiet. There’s nowt the gremlins like less than sentiment.’ 

Against the pillow Farrier groaned, ‘What if I said I wanted you,’ and lifted his arse, whereupon Collins was almost felled by the ferocity of his desire (or perhaps of his head wound). Love, too; but that was a secret to be kept, if only till they were finished. So Collins told him, ‘That’s better,’ and spat on his fingers and worked them into Farrier’s arse till Farrier was red-eared and panting, trying to keep himself from the indignity of begging. No such luck: Collins bent down to bite Farrier’s neck, his shoulder, till Farrier said: ‘Collins, Collins, please.’ 

‘Did ye think of me,’ gasped Collins. He gripped his cock with his fist, braced himself with a palm to the mattress. There were tears in his eyes; he told himself they were the tears of effort, or perhaps three years of accumulated eye strain.

‘Once or twice,’ said Farrier. 

As Collins fucked him he placed his hand on Farrier’s outstretched hand, slipped his fingers between Farrier’s fingers, and noticed for the first time that the last two fingers on Farrier’s left hand were crooked, as if they had been broken and set poorly. Faint white scarring thickened the skin of his knuckles. Farrier’s nails were scraping the linen; a groan heaved through his chest each time Collins wrenched his hips forward. When Farrier turned his face to press it into the pillow his groans were muffled, and Collins minded how his voice would waver over the R/T. _Break to port,_ Collins heard, _break to starboard, break and engage._ He pressed his mouth to the nape of Farrier’s neck and held him fast as he finished, his cock throbbing in time with the pain in his head. Farrier gasped as if he were weeping. 

Turning Farrier onto his back, Collins saw that he was still hard. He leant in to kiss Farrier’s neck, bite it till it went red; when Farrier swept his fingers through Collins’ hair and pushed his head down he went gratefully, took Farrier’s cock in one smooth sweep of lips down the shaft. Farrier was saying something as he spent, but Collins didn’t catch it, and thought that probably it was better he hadn’t; probably it was sentiment of the eminently dangerous sort. Collins was content to swallow, to keep Farrier’s cock on his tongue till it was soft and then to rise and kiss Farrier’s mouth. Farrier tasted different to what he did in 1940. 

Before Collins pulled away Farrier ran the tips of his fingers over the jagged line of his stitches, then pressed just firmly enough to hurt. When Collins flinched Farrier said, quite calmly, ‘You fucking well asked for it.’ 

‘Have been for a wee while,’ said Collins, and put his head on Farrier’s chest. Farrier’s skin was damp with sweat, the hair on his chest was soft. Warmth came from him as it could only come from a living thing. Collins imagined himself in his Beau again, with Coldwell on the AI set behind him, squinting into the darkness and remembering Farrier’s warmth. The bed was soft, but too solid beneath him: he wanted motion. 

‘What you said,’ said Farrier. ‘That I hadn’t got a chance to be killed. I will again, some time or other. I had a chat last week with the Staysh at Cranfield; once my leave is up I’ll be joining the night-fighting O.T.U. Still remains to be seen whether they can make anything of a relic like me, I suppose.’

‘Well,’ said Collins, rising with a stretch, crossing to the window. There, naked, he lighted a cigarette. ‘If you turn out to be any good at it I’ll put in a word for you at Malling.’ 

Farrier was behind him; he put an arm round Collins’ waist and stood on his toes to rest his chin on Collins’ shoulder. Collins laughed and shook him off, so that then they stood side by side. Below them was Victoria Street, yellow with the warm spring sunset: on the pavement, hurrying towards the station or putting out a hand for the bus, were soldiers and sailors, Americans and British, WAAFs and WACs and VADs; children in patched jackets, their mothers in patched cardigans and knee-length floral frocks. Pigeons settled and scattered. Above the line of the buildings opposite rose the tower of the Westminster Cathedral, whose bells just then began to ring the hour.

When the sun set, Collins thought, he would have to fix the blackout. After that they would go for a drink, perhaps at the Rye and Dry, perhaps at the Brevet; there were still survivors of 28 Squadron who did not know Farrier had returned, and if Farrier _was_ going to join a night-fighting squadron Collins thought he might as well begin to make introductions. But they had got an hour left, he reckoned, before twilight, so he heaved open the window.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> A few notes: Collins' night-fighting scenes are amalgamations of anecdotes from _Night Fighter_ by Bob Braham. The bit about the toilets in Spangenberg was taken from _Wire and Walls: RAF Prisoners of War in Itzehoe, Spangenberg and Thorn, 1939-42_ by Charles Rollings. The George and Dragon in Wrotham is a real pub that was frequented by pilots at RAF West Malling; the Three Horseshoes is fictional. Incidentally, the cellar bar at Douces Manor, the officers' mess at West Malling, was known as the 'Twitch Inn'.
> 
> The title refers to a line from the unpublished memoirs of Lieutenant-Commander 'Billie' Stephens, an escapee of Colditz: 'One hundred percent luck isn’t good enough. You have to have the devil’s luck as well.'


End file.
